The University of Barcelona hosts a meeting with the Spanish universities that are part of European Universities Initiative

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Thu, 01/23/2020 - 12:03

The aim of this meeting is to develop synergies and to agree on a common message to deliver to the Spanish government looking for support to the European Universities initiative.

On 22 January 2020, the University of Barcelona (CHARM-EU Coordinator) organised an event with the rectors and the main representatives from the Spanish universities that are part of European University Alliances. Out of 54 applications received, 17 European Universities involving 114 higher education institutions (11 Spanish institutions) from 24 Member States were selected in the first European Commission call. A second call was launched last autumn.

The aim of this meeting was to build synergies and agree on a common message to be transmitted to the Spanish government seeking for a strong support to this European initiative. Even though there are differences between the proposals, the representatives of the alliances agreed in the importance to discuss future scenarios in order to build a dialogue with the governmental bodies as well as with national Quality assurance Agencies.

In this unique initiative, which has become one of the main focus  of the Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European Commission (DG EAC), the support of national governmental became a key feature, in particular regarding recognitions at the national and international level, which will help to ensure the sustainability of these alliances beyond the three-years founded Erasmus+ project.

European Universities initiative

In December 2017, the European Council created the initiative of creating a network of European universities aiming to improve the international competitiveness of higher education institutions and to strengthen the feeling of European membership, an idea that was previously mentioned by the President of France Emmanuel Macron. “The idea was to gather a new generation of European people to cooperate and work on different European and international cultures, in different languages, without worrying about frontiers, different sectors and the different academic disciplines”, stated the Rector of the University of Barcelona.

This initiative was launched and the first grant aid of the European Commission, within the Erasmus+ program but aimed at the creation of European universities, has a funding of thirty million euros and will be published in July 2019.